Books: Misanthrope from Japon

For a satirist, bile is almost as necessary as ink. Some, like Dean
Swift, swim in it; others, like John Marquand, barely wet their prose
in it; a few end by drowning in it. Japan's Ryunosuke Akutagawa was one
of the hapless few; in 1927, sunk in pessimism and possibly near
madness, he took an overdose of veronal and died. He was only 35, but
the more than 100 short stories he wrote have since established him as
Japan's most corrosive modern satirist.

Last year. U.S. filmgoers made his acquaintance in the sardonic and
powerful Japanese...